Summer 2025: back to normal... or a new beginning?
The summer of 2024 had one name: the Olympic Games. The summer of 2025 has a different colour: that of a return to equilibrium - or at least a clearer start for French tourism.
2024: summer under Olympic scrutiny
Last year, Paris shone in the world's spotlight. But behind the Olympic fervour, traditional tourism had to find its way between fan zones, security perimeters and price hikes. The result was a summer of illusion. Plenty of visitors, yes, but not necessarily the usual fans of Provence, the Loire or the Côte d'Azur. Non-Olympic" foreigners shunned the great classics.
✈️ 2025: more varied suitcases
One year on, the 2025 season looks to be calmer. Industry professionals are noting a gradual return of international visitors, with a special mention for the Americans, the British, the Germans... and, more tentatively, the Chinese.
What about Chinese tourists?
It's the big question in the corridors of Parisian hotels and luxury boutiques: are the Chinese (finally) back?
The answer: not completely, but there's a buzz.
After years marked by Covid, visa restrictions and diplomatic tensions, Chinese tourists are cautiously returning to Europe. But their profiles have changed:
- Fewer organised groups,
- More young, independent travellers,
- And a growing interest in less traditional destinations (Normandy, Alsace, secondary towns).
The average shopping basket remains high, but the pre-2020 buying frenzy is no longer the norm.
Tourism in a state of flux
Above all, the summer of 2025 shows that post-Covid tourism is still reinventing itself. The ultra-luxury sector is resisting, the charming hotel sector is coming back to life, and French customers are remaining loyal to the ‘values of refuge’: sea, mountains, heritage.
France is once again a playground for the whole world - but with new rules.
